Should I carry spare shockers?

I would think you could drive, albeit uncomfortably, with dud shock absorbers.
But I would carry a spare steering damper. I had mine break the weld of the attaching eye and the troopy was just about undrivable without it. Had to crawl a less than 20kmh to the shop to get a new one fitted, luckily it was in town where it broke.
Klaus

I drove my 1988 DA Maverick around for about 4 months before I finally had the money to sort out the dud shockie on the back, had numerous people tell me how it affects steering and control etc etc etc which it does but you just have to be more careful. Not saying I would recommend it but it just makes for a bumpier ride and puts pressure on springs. ours got us from Broome to Sydney and round the bottom half and back to Broome again albeit on Bitumen but still made it and did a couple of tracks out to Willie Creek (Town side not the pearl farm side) and around and about before I fixed it. So in conclusion I would say probably be ok but remember everything costs more up here than in cities ($140ea as opposed to $90ea for my shocks).

no - you will hardly notice a shock going. I had a crapped out one totally stuffed for i dunno how long 9only found out when I gor bored and removed them for checking. I replaced them and couldnt notice any difference

G'Day Tim, have you sorted that Barrett HF out yet? Regd's Darryn

NO I wouldn't ..On coils thats another story.

All the best
Eric

Hi Tim - Should be dry by the time you get there.
We just returned from the NT, and had planned some of those tracks.
We were told - Gibb closed; Tanami -not sure if closed but wet, and several creeks across the road. Road trains all stopped at Kununurra and Cape Crawford etc. Winton to Longreach road closed for a period - flooding (creeks all up when we passed).
We drove the Tablelands highway - It was closed to heavy traffic - single lane bitumen with wet boggy edges. Some creeks flooding on Savannah way.
You may need to stay flexible with your plans, and check local conditions.
On the Exploroz home page, look under 'Topics' then click 'Road Conditions' and select the areas you intend driving.

....................................Keith

Right at the moment I'd be more worried about carrying spare blankets!!! Have you seen how cold it has been up there lately?

Cheers,

Russ.

I've got coils all round and wouldn't go without spare shocks - at times on those roads you will of course strike corrugations - often mild, sometimes bad, sometimes horrendous - have seen people crawling along like snails in those areas, to avoid excessive wheel bounce (presuming shocks have fritzed) - I upgraded shocks and took the old ones along for the Gibb, the Mitchell P and the Tanami - do not count on finding even common shocks at roadhouses and remote repairers. Hell.... we take bushes too - they can chew out in a hurry too (depending on various factors). Moderate driving habits of course can help to avoid nearly all of the above - those that flog their rigs along these roads have 90% of the trouble I'm sure - plenty of drivers up there have a trouble free experience.

Pete from Great Divide Tours was telling me (when I bumped into him in Marla) that on his recent CSR trip he replaced a front shocker on an IFS cruiser.

I can imagine replacing a front one, but a rear one would be a hell of a lot of work on the side of the road.

Cheers
Andrew.

other thing to consider is could you even remove the shock out bush? some can be done in 1/2 hour others would be easier to remove if they were welded on

I carry spare shocks all the time. A full set. Coil suspension.

This comes from busting two front shocks on the CSR many years ago. Its a long story but the upshot is that I will never buy another Gabriel Product again.

Cheers

Hi Tim,

Need to thing about Shock protection too. As with all Cruisers the rear shock is in front of the diff and cops an absolute flogging from stones. I've always cable-tied some conveyor belt/rubber over the front of the rear shocks to minimise this damage. On my 100s the top cover kept rotating around leaving the rubber flap to the side of the shock - fair enough I did a run out to William Creek one weekend and noticed the back end took a bit to settle down after going thru dips or over bumps.....pulled up and a stone had punctured the shock base and let all the oil out. The shock was only 2000km old. Most good shocks now have the double skin of metal on the front bottom 2 inchs of shock to reduce the possibility of this happening.

If your going to be doing a lot of dirt than probably good insurance to carry a spare but for a leaf sprung vehicle you could drive 100's of km with out one and wouldn't be that bad. I drove the 130km home and it really didn't make much difference - certainly wasn't uncomfortable...just different.

Have a good trip anyway mate.